“Every step that man takes is a threat.” Hunter walked over to her as she righted her sleeves about her arms and grabbed her chin, halting her motions. “But when the hospital is settled—when it can be managed without you—”
She cut his words off, jumping to her toes and kissing him with all of the passion that had simmered in the past three years. Her lips so soft, so enticing upon his that he seriously considered reversing her progress and peeling away her dress.
Breaking the kiss, she pulled away and clasped his head in her hands. “I am yours, Hunter. In any place you see fit. I can continue my father’s work anywhere.”
He smiled, his cheeks pressing into her palms. “Then let us make this happen quickly. You need to finish getting dressed and I have some hospital patrons to produce.”
{ Chapter 10 }
The second Bridget stepped into the hospital a chill slithered down her spine, spiking the hairs along her neck. Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She almost turned back to the door, turned back to chase after the hired hack she had watched Hunter ride away in, immediately on his mission to unearth possible benefactors for the hospital. Where he would find them, Bridget couldn’t imagine, though that didn’t stop her from believing he could do so.
But he was gone.
Her head swiveled.
The main room was empty. Still. Barren and reeking of alcohol—whiskey if she had to venture a guess.
It was the middle of the day and there was always activity afoot—it had been so ever since they opened the hospital doors.
She looked around, reassuring herself she had entered the right building. It was the hospital. Three tentative steps into the main room, and her knee bumped into a wooden bench.
“Marjorie?”
Three more steps and her head swiveled, studying the length of the room. “Marjorie?”
Clunk.
She looked up to the sound coming from the floor above.
Clunk.
“Marjorie? Randolph?”
After a quick glance out the small pane of glass next to the front door, Bridget stepped toward the stairs.
Just as she moved into the stairwell, Bournestein appeared, his cane tapping on each of the last three stairs he stepped down.
“Mr. Crawford took ye away longer than ye promised.” He walked toward her, not slowing even though there was no room to step around her in the stairwell landing. “But not to worry, Mrs. Morton. I cleared yer patients for ye.”
Taking two steps backward, she glanced back over her shoulder into the main room. “You? You cleared my patients, Mr. Bournestein? How? And whatever for?”
He sneered. “Still playin’ the innocent, aren’t ye, Mrs. Morton? Ye want to dance it that way, do ye?”
Bridget’s look whipped back to him, tendrils of true fear snaking around her stomach, squeezing as her feet kept moving backward. “Innocent?”
“Ye betrayed me, ye bitch. Did ye think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Find—” The back of her legs bumped into a bench. “Find out what, Mr. Bournestein? I have done nothing.”
His cane slammed down, the gold tip grinding into the wood next to her little toe. “Ye helped that rat escape. That Aldair rat.”
Her mouth clamped shut.
He knew.
He knew and there would be no use in denying it at this point. She had seen the pulverized bodies of people that had attempted to lie their way out of Bournestein’s grasp.
He kept moving forward, not stopping until his belly bumped into her, the purple velvet of his overcoat pressing into her white apron. He leaned over her, his beady eyes slicing into her as the stench that permeated from every orifice of his body ravaged her nose. “And yer time here under my generosity is over, Mrs. Morton. Ye be nothin’ but an example now for the likes of ye—a cautionary tale.”
He glanced up, taking a step backward, and then lifted his cane to swing it wide around the room. “Say yer goodbye, Mrs. Morton.”
~~~
Hunter saw it from down the street.
The ash floating in the twilight. The burning embers still trailing smoke into the sky.
He hadn’t been gone that long. Four hours. Maybe five.
He moved closer. Closer.
Disbelief. Bargains with the almighty quick to the tip of his tongue.
He rubbed his eyes. He had the wrong building. The wrong street.
Every step dragged harder below him. Every lift of his leg, a lead weight holding him down.
Wrong building. Wrong street.
He was wrong.
He had to be wrong.
Wrong.
His eyes went dazed, the world slowing around him as he struggled through the crowd and to a stop before the smoldering building, his world imploding with every remnant spark bursting out from the collapsed rubble.
A man walked in front of him.
A man he recognized. Randolph. The surgeon. The one that helped him get Aldair out of the hospital.
His arm sluggish, he reached out, snatching Randolph’s collar. The man’s feet flew out and he scrambled to get his balance. His movements delayed, he was just as dazed as Hunter.
“Randolph, where is Bridget?”
Randolph’s hand lifted to his forehead and he rubbed the black soot streaked across his face into his skin. “She—she was inside.”
Grabbing him with two hands, Hunter shook his collar, lifting the man off his feet. “She what?”
Randolph gripped Hunter’s forearms, struggling to free himself. It took long seconds before Hunter set him to the ground, but he didn’t let go of his collar.
Randolph’s arms dropped to his sides, his shoulders drooping. “She was inside. She was getting the boy.” His words trailed as his soot-covered hand wrapped his face, covering his eyes.
No.
It wasn’t her building. It wasn’t.
Hunter shoved Randolph away and staggered to the front of the charred building. The outer brick of the upper levels had collapsed inward, leaving only a shell of the first level, the door only half burned through. He moved closer, ignoring the smoldering heat. Just as he lifted his foot to kick open the lower half of the door, a charred beam that ran the width of the building crashed to the ground. Sparks flew and ashes billowed outward with a blast of burning heat.
Hunter stumbled three steps backward.
The horror of what he was witnessing crept into his bones and he stared up at the space where the building once stood. No wood. No brick. No mortar. Just minuscule tendrils of orange light from the setting sun snaking through the haze of smoke.
The hospital was nothing but ash.
It was Bournestein’s specialty. Burn anything that betrayed him. Burn anyone that betrayed him.
Logan had warned him and he hadn’t done enough to warn Bridget. He hadn’t done enough to protect her.
He should have taken her, dragged her out of the city that very first night when he’d had the chance. She was injured and weak in his house. He should have taken her then.
She would have hated him for it. But she would also be alive.
He had failed her.
Again.
And now she was dead.
His body started to curl in on itself.
He had just held her in his arms not but hours ago. Her skin under his fingers. Her lips full on his. Her body melding into him.
A thick waft of smoke filled his lungs, choking his breath. The stench of her death.
He looked up at the embers of the crackling wood floating high past the half-burnt door.
No. Randolph was wrong. He had to be. Bridget was alive. She was too smart to die in there. She would have gotten out.
Disbelief so thick filled his chest that he couldn’t move.
He had to hear it again. Hear someone say she was dead again, so he could believe it.
Because she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t. Wouldn’t his heart know it instantly? How could he not know her l
ast breath? Her spirit leaving her body?
She wasn’t dead.
She couldn’t be.
He forced his head to turn, looking back to Randolph. He had to hear it again.
The man was gone.
Only a crowd. Murmurs. Crying.
Then the back of Randolph’s head appeared, bobbing as he dodged about people along the edge of the crowd. If he hadn’t moved so quickly, Hunter never would have noticed him. Never would have noticed him stop abruptly, suddenly flanked by two burly men.
Bournestein’s guards.
Randolph nodded to them, and then the three men set off down the street.
Randolph.
Randolph walking down the street like he hadn’t just witnessed a dear friend die a fiery death.
Hunter’s heart sped, the beats turning to thunder in his chest.
Randolph had just lied to him.
Bridget wasn’t dead.
She wasn’t.
Missing, yes. But not dead.
And this time, he wasn’t about to stop searching until he found her.
{ Chapter 11 }
“Randolph, thank the heavens.”
Relief that it wasn’t one of Bournestein’s guards poking his head into the bedroom that held her captive swept through Bridget. To a one, the guards leered, their mouths smacking. To scare her so she wasn’t trouble—that was the reason why. Or at least that was what she told herself, for she didn’t want to consider the alternative.
“Bridget, you’re safe.” Randolph stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him and running across the room. He stopped in front of her.
She twisted her wrists against the rope that bound them together, lashed to the tall wooden post of the bed she stood next to. She knew she was deep in Bournestein’s lair, in the rooms above the Joker’s Roost, and she had been attempting for an hour to twist herself free from the raw rope, only succeeding in setting deep red marks into her skin.
She glanced up at Randolph before looking down to the rope, her words flying fast. “Quick, you need to cut me free, untie me. And then we need to get out of here, Randolph. You’re not safe here. How did you even get in here? Bournestein found out about Aldair escaping and I cannot protect you from him. If he discovered you helped me let Aldair escape I don’t know what he’ll do to you.”
Randolph’s arms drew behind his back, his hands clasping. “You don’t need to protect me, Bridget.”
Her look whipped to him. The brown hair along his brow was sweaty, streaks of darkness swathed along his face. “Randolph, what is on your face? Coal?”
“It’s soot. I have news Bridget.” He didn’t move to untie her ropes. Didn’t move at all. He just stared at her, his brown eyes vacant with an odd glow about them.
Dread sank into her chest, heavy—so heavy, she could barely force the question from her lips. “What?”
“The soot is from the hospital, Bridget.”
Her knees went weak and she pulled herself close to the post for support, leaning on the smooth wood. “The hospital? No. Tell me you aren’t—”
“I am. The hospital is gone, Bridget. Burned to the ground.”
Her knees gave out and she twisted around the post, collapsing onto the foot of the bed. Her head dropped forward, her temples hitting her upper arm as her head shook. Gasps of air interrupted her words. “No—it cannot be—he wouldn’t do it. Not for how much it helps the people here.”
“He doesn’t give a damn about helping the people, Bridget. Not like you do. Not like I do.”
Her head jerked up, hot tears in her eyes blurring Randolph’s form. “But he was just visiting the adjoining building—he was going to add it to the hospital.”
“He was never looking to buy that building for the hospital, Bridget. He wanted to see it, to determine if it would burn as well when he did this.”
“He—he what? Why—why would he do any of this?”
His arms still clenched tightly to his thin frame, Randolph shrugged with a sigh. “He has been thinking to shut down the hospital, Bridget—he has been for months.”
“But why?” Her brow furrowed. “Aside from his obvious disgust of the ill? Why?”
Randolph took a hesitant step toward her, yet his hands remained behind his back. “Its success is also its downfall. The people have come to depend on the hospital too much. They recover too well. Healthy people are people that demand more—they aren’t as thankful for the scraps Bournestein throws them. And that, he can’t have. It threatens him.”
The tears in her eyes morphed into a bitter storm of rage in her stomach—so thick it sent bile up her throat. “So he burns down a hospital that helps sick mothers? Sick children? His people? The people he claims he helps?”
Randolph nodded.
“What sort of a madman is he?”
Randolph paused, his look going to the ruby red velvet curtain hanging in front of the lone window. His thin jaw shifted back and forth for a long moment before his look travelled back to her, his brown eyes both apologetic and defiant. “One that has given me you.”
She sucked in a gasp, instantly realizing the precarious state of her current position. “He gives me to you? What are you talking about?” She looked to her bound hands, understanding swallowing her whole. Randolph wasn’t there to help her. Not at all. Her gaze crept back up to him. “Why are you not untying me, Randolph?”
His lips drew into a thin, tight line, and then he exhaled a sigh. “Bournestein saw it. Saw I wanted you. He offered you to me if I told him the truth about Aldair. The truth about your fictional husband. He offered me a chance for us to be happy. And I finally realized the secrets I have held for you for these many years were the very thing keeping us apart.”
“He off—offered me to you?” The word so abhorrent on her tongue, she had to stutter them out. “What lunacy are you talking about, Randolph? He cannot offer me to you.”
Randolph nodded, his words fast and tumbling over hers. “He can. And he did. We both know who is in charge here, Bridget, and it was never you. Bournestein can do anything he wants. The people are afraid of him. His men know they are always a second away from death with him. No magistrate will touch him. He is—”
“Randolph, what madness has overtaken you?”
“You never saw me, Bridget.” His head started to shake, his words speeding faster. “Never. Never past what I could do for you. What I could do for the hospital.”
Silently frantic, she started to twist her wrists in the ropes again. “You are a fine surgeon, Randolph—you know that. I have told you that a thousand times.”
“But that is all I am. A fine surgeon. I’m sorry, Bridget, but this was the only way. I think in time, you will see that.”
“See what?”
His mouth clamped shut and he stared at her, silent.
“See what, Randolph? What?”
“It was hard, Bridget. I don’t think you appreciate that.” His brown eyes narrowed at her, accusing. “It was all I could do to get Bournestein to agree to it.”
“Agree to what?”
“He wanted to put you in his whorehouse on Wild Street. Drown you so full of laudanum that you would go quietly. Stay quietly. He wanted me to do it.”
The blood drained from her face, her head going light, spinning. “But…but you stopped him? You stopped him, didn’t you?”
“I did. And you will be grateful for that.” A smile carved onto his face, almost as if she had just complimented him on his cunning. “Bournestein gave you to me. He has a house for me. As long as I keep you. As long as you don’t try and escape, he will let you live in my house. I will have to lock you up for a time, until you accept it. That I have already determined.”
She curled back on the bed, disgust firing through her veins. “As long as I am captive?”
“Alive. That is how I think of it. I am saving you, Bridget.”
“So now you work for Bournestein?” Her words screeched. “Is that what you’ve sunk to?”
His lips fell back into a terse line. “I am finally getting what I want in life, so no, I do not think of it as sinking.”
“But, but Hunter—”
Randolph jumped forward, the back of his boney hand swinging fast, slapping her across the face. She fell back onto the bed and in the next instant his hands went down to either side of her on the bed. He hovered over her, his mottled face raging. “Don’t ever—ever say his name again, Bridget. I got rid of him once. I can do it again.”
He shoved himself off the bed, stepping back, his right hand going to smooth the hair at his brow.
Her head bobbed as she tried to right herself, reeling in both pain and the sheer disgust at the person Randolph had turned into.
Then a deeper realization took a hold of her body, sending a tremble into every one of her muscles. Her eyes slowly lifted to him. “You lied to me years ago, didn’t you? You were the one—the one that told me Hunter was gone. Abandoned me. No one else. Just you. I thought everyone at the hospital was being kind, not mentioning his disappearance. But he didn’t abandon me. It was you.”
Randolph didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The twitch in his left eye told her everything she needed to know.
She leapt as hard as she could with her tied wrists, screaming from the bed, her right leg swinging wide at him. Her boot caught him in the gut before her bound arms yanked her to a cruel stop and she dropped to the floor, dangling from the post. Randolph went tumbling to his knees, catching himself on the floor.
For a moment, fire flashed in his eyes and he looked like he was going to charge on her.
She was ready.
She was half splayed on the floor, hanging from the post, but she was ready. She was ready to claw, kick, bite—do anything to escape. Anything. Anything to put him down.
To Capture a Warrior: Logan's Legends (A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Book 5) Page 10